Comedy Central Finds Its Replacement for Stephen Colbert

Comedy Central has named the successor to Stephen Colbert in the cable channel's 11:30 p.m. time slot. Variety reports that "Daily Show" correspondent Larry Wilmore will move into the spot.

The network is readying a new show called “The Minority Report with Larry Wilmore” for the 11:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday time slot, replacing "The Colbert Report," the story reports.

The new show will debut in January and is created by Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show,” with both Stewart and Wilmore signed on as executive producers. Wilmore, who serves as “the senior black correspondent” on “The Daily Show,” will break up “the white-male homogeneity to most of late-night TV,” the story adds.

In an interview with The New York Times’ Bill Carter, Wilmore said he thought his chance of getting his own late-night show was long gone. He had produced a pilot for Showtime in 2012 but it wasn’t picked up.

“I wasn’t sure where I fit into the landscape,” Wilmore, 52, said. “I’ve been in the business for a while. I really thought the window was closed.” He added, “And usually there’s a certain age you have to be.”

A few days ago, Stewart pitched the idea of Wilmore hosting a show featuring young minority comics discussing news events, and Wilmore recounted, “My mouth hit the floor.”

Carter notes: “Fans and television-industry executives were less surprised by Mr. Stewart’s choice. Mr. Wilmore created ‘The Bernie Mac Show’ and wrote for and produced ‘The Office.’ The consensus was that Mr. Wilmore — bright, acerbic, soft-spoken but pointedly funny — was the perfect choice to be the frontman on a show that would inject a pungent minority point of view into the nightly stew of late-night comedy.”